Long time lurker here. If this falls under the"woe is me" rule, I apologize. Maybe I just don't want to put emotional labor on my family and friends.

A little about me. I'm in the military, I'm 30, and in the past 15 years I have had two LTRs amounting to 3 and a half years. The first ended because I couldn't afford to stay in my hometown after my family moved and the second ended because I went on my first deployment. I have gone long stretches without any female companionship or even casual sex. Clubs annoy me and all my hobbies and interests are heavily male and nerdy.

I have very low self-esteem and I don't believe that people really want me around. In large groups I tend to be quiet and engage in only a limited fashion.

I also tend to develop juvenile crushes on some female coworkers. Granted, I have become very good at hiding these feelings and I tend to treat them with the same sarcasm and "friendly asshole" behavior I give my male coworkers. Service members seem to respond well to that and many of the people I've worked with describe me as a grumpy grandfather.

Being at sea brought me peace and a sense of belonging that I have never felt on land. The loneliness i feel living in a country of 2 million people and working on a base with 5 thousand people is becoming just too much.

So my current plan is to get out and get a ship based job, a job where I won't have female coworkers, a job where I will have lots of free time to explore all the places my finances wouldn't allow me to go before, a job where people rely on each other with their lives.

I genuinely believe that sometimes a person just needs to abandon the things they aren't good at and for me that is relationships and pursuing women. I also know that if I stop trying, I'm not enough of a catch that I will be pursued by anyone.

Maybe this path will lead to happiness, I'm not sure, but I can't imagine it will lead to more loneliness and pain.

Sorry if my grammar is poor. I read a lot but I never went to college.